Sep 2011
Strong Stories - Tough Choices
26/09/11 17:45 Filed in: Writing
The first choice was quite easy, actually: the first story. It introduces the characters, establishes the setting (in both time and space) and creates the initial sets of central relationships. So the first story will be included. But after that, which?
My temptation is to go with two stories that I personally like more than the others. It sounds weird to say that, I know, since as the author I tend to like them all. But, for example, one story stands out for me because my mom called immediately after reading it to tell me that she loved it and that it made her cry. I like another because I think it adds an extra dimension to one of the minor characters, a dimension I'd like to develop further in later stories. I like a third because I got the idea for it from a hilarious conversation with a friend and the story reminds me both of the conversation and the friend.
Then there are the stories that introduce new features to the collection: like the ones that make the historical context more real and vivid, or the ones that feature famous historical figures, or the ones that introduce danger and mystery. Or the stories with a particularly interesting guest character. Hmmm.... it's not an easy choice.
Putting my temptation aside, I'm considering choosing one story that directly involves the historical setting (either by way of a famous personage from that era or by addressing an issue that is specific to that time and place) and a second story that appeals to the emotions. I'm attempting to convince the publisher to take on this collection on the basis that these are historically accurate, well written tales that will appeal to a certain age group of kids, providing them with realistic and emotionally complex stories that will both challenge them and engage their imaginations.
I think my approach is not a bad one: send the publisher the first story, as well as a particularly historical story and another that touches on the emotions very strongly. It's just that I've got several stories that fit into each of the latter two categories. I guess I've got some thinking, and some reading, to do.
Today's Photograph: Marlee Marie, our beloved Golden Doodle, in a classic, "I'm pooped" pose.
A sky thick with geese
But I had an experience the other day that made these massive birds seem nothing less than magical. I was walking Marlee, our beloved Golden Doodle, at the Potato Research Farm here in Fredericton, enjoying the fading warmth of the fall afternoon and the gentle touch of the slowly setting sun on my face. The wide sky of the St. John River Valley hung almost pure blue above us, with very few clouds within view.
Then, to the west, we heard and then saw a line of Canada Geese approaching, perhaps 30 in all, honking loudly as they pelted across the sky. They came in fast and low, then as a unit swung in a sweeping curve to head northward. As I watched them go past, I saw in the distance to the north a small cluster of geese approaching. This time, just four. An advance party, I guessed, scouting out the sky.
As the four approached the larger flock, I saw an even larger group come into view over the river, following the advance party. I thought the groups would join into one larger cluster but the advance party swung east, ceding way to the 30, and their flock followed them to the east, staying out of the way of the original group.
I watched in awe, only to catch sight of yet another group, maybe 20 or so, coming in from the east, heading directly for the original squadron. The sky was filled with black and white forms, moving in lines, honking and squawking, wings beating a rhythm. I was reminded of descriptions I used to read in history books of the RAF's "big wing" formations of fighters, gathering above Western England from airbases scattered all over the British Isles to form up and attack the Luftwaffe bomber fleets as they approached London.
Except the geese never formed up. In fact, despite the fact that the sky over the potato form was thick with birds, the lines never even inter-mingled with each other, not for a single second. In graceful arcs and choreographed turns, the groups neared each other but managed to stay sorted. And that's the phrase that occurred to me: the geese were staying sorted.
I don't know how they organise themselves. I don't know how they determine their lines, their flocks, their formations. But on this day, I saw the majesty of the Canada Geese as they darkened the sky over Fredericton in an amazingly precise, pristine aerial performance.
Today's Photograph: A flock of Canada Geese arrow across the sky above the Potato Research Farm.
Submission package number two underway
18/09/11 20:10 Filed in: Writing
The stories, written in a naive style reminiscent of the old Nancy Drew mysteries, follows the adventures of four 16-year-old girls who find work at a New Brunswick train station/hotel in 1941. Historically accurate and, I hope, entertaining, the 12 tales follow these girls through an important period in Canada's history, as the nation proves itself in the battle for Europe and the McAdam Station and Hotel serves the gateway for troop and supply trains flooding into Halifax from parts west.
They are odd little stories, to be sure, but I think the combination of the period and the particular characters makes them quite charming. Certainly, my friends and family members who have read them seem to enjoy them very much.
I can imagine them one day serving as the basis for a CBC television series, in the vein of Anne of Green Gables or The Road to Avonlea. If I can get this first collection published, I certainly plan to write more stories and I'm even toying with the idea of a full-length novel featuring Abigail Massey and her friends.
The funny thing about these stories is that I found writing them so easy. The characters became real very quickly for me and the plots just seem to present themselves to me fully formed. I'm something of a history buff so I very much enjoyed the research required to ensure realism and to introduce several historical figures into the tales and the fact that I can actually go and visit the Station and Hotel in McAdam, still preserved in its 1950s state, makes it all the more enjoyable an experience.
I hope to get the submission package ready by the end of this week. It's an interesting feeling submitting your work to a publisher. Exciting, scary, but interesting.
Today's Photograph: The McAdam Station and Hotel in McAdam, New Brunswick, as seen from the rear, with tracks and artificial lake in foreground.
Selling myself and my novel
14/09/11 20:46 Filed in: Writing
There's an excitement to it, as you work very hard to create the perfect cover letter, the most scintillating synopsis, the most effective CV to convey your qualities and abilities and experiences. A feeling that, hey, this might be the one: my novel fits well with this publisher's list; they like books set in Canadian cities; they've shown a willingness to work with unpublished authors.
One of the big challenges about this particular publisher is that it requires a one-page synopsis. Imagine trying to distill all the exciting events, all the interesting characters, all the beautifully described settings in your novel down to a single page!
Another challenge is that the publisher requires a marketing plan. How will I, the author, work to help sell the novels once they're published?
The synopsis took me a while but I finally came up with something with which I am quite happy.
The marketing plan, well, I just loved doing that. I surveyed my friends and colleagues, I researched what successful writers have done, I scoured the web. And I think I came up with a pretty good plan, one which combines both the old and the new, traditional marketing approaches with the opportunities created by the information age.
And how logical is it that the author, especially a first-time author, should be at the forefront of creating interest in his or her novel? As one friend of mine, whose second novel recently hit the book stores and who is currently writing his third, told me: "What sells your books is you. Get out there and get people interested in you and what you have to say."
I had a great time coming up with my marketing plan and, yesterday, I mailed the package away to the publishing house. It should get there by early next week, in time (I hope) for their fall review of fiction submissions. I think my novel is good enough to be published and I believe that it is really right for this particular publisher.
So excitement is high. But I also have to keep reminding myself that the first Harry Potter novel was rejected by several publishers before finding a home (and astonishing popularity) and John Grisham had to self-publish his own first novel (and then sell it out of the back of his battered old car) before getting signed with a real publisher and becoming a huge success.
So many different factors come into play when it comes to whether or not a particular publisher will take on a particular book, no matter how good the novel is. I believe that my book is good. I just hope that, this time, things fall into place and the rest of the world will get the chance to tell me if I'm right or not.
Today's Photograph: Sunrise on the St. John River.
Fibre Op doesn't undermine Springsteen's wisdom
04/09/11 21:30 Filed in: Life | Television
It's been quite nice, actually.
Then along came fibre optics. Bell Aliant out here in Atlantic Canada is really pushing "Fibre Op" as the next great thing in television and internet. And they've been offering great deals, including Free Installation, Free Personal Video Recorder (PVR) and reduced pricing. What really sold us, though, was when people whose opinion we respect and rely on with regard to all things technical and electronic said they'd get fibre op if it were available in their areas.
Okay. We decided to dive in.
We had the fibre op installer (Phil, a really nice guy) at the house on Saturday and, despite some pretty scary stories we'd heard about how long installation can take and how much damage it can do to your house, our install was actually pretty simple. Phil had it done in an hour, with very little impact on the state of our home. And it's working really well.
We opted for the best package available, mainly because all three packages are the same price for three months and you're allowed, before the price increases, to step your service down to one of the lower packages. We've got zippy internet (with really fast uploads, which has helped my photo blog immensely) and a state of the art television service in high def, complete with the PVR.
There are only two things that bother me. First, Springsteen had it right when he sang, "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on". Only now it's 200 channels and nothing on. I know, that's a bit of a stretch. So far, I've enjoyed brief glimpses of a Blue Jays game, U.S. Open Tennis and a CFL tilt, all in HD. That's really cool. But, when you scroll through the "Guide" function on the service, you honestly do find that those 200 channels offer up a lot of crap. One channel was showing "Entourage" continuously. Several others didn't seem to have any programming, just paid advertising shows. The new Oprah network appears to the be the new "All Yoga" channel. It's kind of sad.
And, speaking of the Guide function, that's my second pet peeve. The Guide includes every channel that you could possibly have purchased from Bell Aliant, even if you didn't purchase them. We have 200 channels but our Guide function makes us scroll through about 600 anyway. So I had to set up my own "Favourites" listing, which just included the channels we actually get. Then I realised that even that list was almost 300 channels and impossible to flip through, mostly because about 50 of the channels we get occupy two or three different slots in the guide.
Often, it's the digital version first and then, further up the list, the high-definition version of the same channel. Sometimes, the high-def version appears more than once as the service provider groups them into the bundles they try to sell you. If the same high-def channel appears in two or more bundles, it shows up two or three times on the listings.
So I spent some more time deleting the duplicated channels. Ugh. Why can't they just set it so that you get every channel only once (the high-def version if you have high-def service) and so that the "Guide" function only shows the stations you get?
Still, I am quite excited about watching tomorrow's TiCat-Alouette game in high def, in my own home, the first CFL game I'll watch all season!
Today's Photograph: A lovely flower on a tree hanging over a bike part in Fredericton. I'm quite happy with this photo!
Sun comes up, it's the Cowboy Junkies
02/09/11 21:59 Filed in: Life
It's been a long time since that's happened but the reunion was genuinely welcome. I don't know many voices that I like better than that of Margo Timmins and I don't think there are many bands that can spin a musical tale better than the Junkies.
What surprised me was the fact that I had forgotten some of the words to that song. I used to have them memorised. Completely and utterly memorised. I remember back in 1991, in Cambridge, Ontario, taping the video for "Sun Comes Up" off the TV, then watching it over and over again as I learned all the lyrics. And that's no easy task since the song is almost four minutes long and the lyrics fill about 95% of the time.
So this morning I had to go to Youtube and play it back a couple of times. What a great song. Then I moved on to its companion song from that early album, The Caution Horses, called "Cheap is How I Feel". That's another song I used to know off by heart (about two decades ago) but it was a real thrill to come back to it again as if it were new.
As I am wont to do, I then started exploring the library of Cowboy Junkies tunes on Youtube and found live performances of some of their songs, including a 1990 appearance on the Tonight Show in which they wowed Carson with a powerful rendition of "Sweet Jane" and a 1991 performance on Letterman where they performed "Sun Comes Up".
Fabulous, both. But it was the Letterman performance that really blew me away. Timmins was on top of her game that night. Even though her rendition stayed fairly close to the album version, she still managed to add something extra to the song. At one point, as she smoothed through one section, I actually emitted a spontaneous "Wow" out loud. The performance is that good.
The Junkies hold a special place in my heart and have done since they first put out the Trinity Sessions, their monster smash second album. Originally, my devotion to the band arose simply because, when I lived in Toronto, I found myself walking past the Trinity Church where they recorded that album. I felt some sort of weird personal connection as a result.
The connection was strengthened some years later when I stumbled upon an amazing opportunity: the band was performing in a small bar in Hamilton, Ontario, limbering up for their next tour with, I think, the Miles from Our Home album. The only flaw in the show was that Patti couldn't be there to enjoy it with me. The Junkies were absolutely mesmerizing and Timmins made every one of the 100 or so people in that tiny room feel that she was singing just for them.
I was delighted several years later when the band returned to Hamilton for another small-club show as they prepared to tour the One Soul Now album. Patti was able to come and, again, everything was perfect until... At some point in the evening, I ended up drinking a glass of wine that had been spiked with Rohypnol (probably intended for one of the women in our party). Just as the Junkies were revving up to play "The Anniversary Song" (at our oft-shouted request, doncha know!), the Roofies hit me and I was done. I don't remember anything that followed, though Patti tells me it was quite a scary experience, right down to the difficult trip home (with her basically carrying me) and the visit from the unsympathetic ambulance crew who helped her make sure I would survive the night.
That was probably the most memorable night of my life that I can't remember. I don't know if I'll ever be able to see the Cowboy Junkies perform live again (and I certainly hope I do get that chance) but I'll always have those great songs with me, on CD, on the web and deeply seated in my memory; even if I do lose the odd line here and there as I age.
Today's Photograph: Sun comes up on a foggy morning at the fire hall in Fredericton.
Bossypants is an engaging read
01/09/11 07:10 Filed in: Reading
I found Fey to be a genuinely modest person who usually credits luck (and other people) for her accomplishments and is quite open about her own failings. She's led an interesting life and has some helpful things to say. And she says what she has to say in a very funny way. I laughed out loud a number of times while reading this book and had many more chuckles along the way.
There are some bits I didn't understand, like her rant about Photoshop late in the book. I had no idea that there was such a debate over the issue of retouching photographs in show business so I didn't really feel it was necessary for Fey to give me four full pages supporting her own views on the subject (she's in favour of Photoshop but not when used to extremes).
One of the truly refreshing aspects of the book is Fey's honest (and often hilarious) discussion of what it's like to be a woman in the 40+ set in movies and television. An excerpt from the book on this subject had appeared earlier in The New Yorker, so I had received a bit of a preview of it, but I found Fey's comments to be at once insightful, inspiring but also quite dispiriting.
If you're looking for Hollywood gossip, you are not going to find it in Bossypants. Fey is consistently complimentary and respectful when talking about the other famous people she's encountered (even Sarah Palin, by the way). But if you want an interesting, fun read written by a thoughtful superstar, this book is really worth your time.
Today's Photograph: The Chateau Frotenac in Quebec City, as seen from the streets of the preserved 17th Century original town.